KNOM Radio Missionhttp://www.knom.org/wp
96.1 FM | 780 AM | Yours for Western AlaskaTue, 31 Mar 2015 21:44:05 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Placer Mining Big Business in Alaska, Report Findshttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2015/01/13/placer-mining-big-business-in-alaska-report-finds/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2015/01/13/placer-mining-big-business-in-alaska-report-finds/#commentsTue, 13 Jan 2015 23:21:24 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=13945The report finds the majority of placer mines are mining for gold, off of the road system, and with small crews of about four people.]]>http://www.knom.org/wp-audio/2015/01/2015-01-13-placer-mining.mp3

Most placer mining operations in Alaska are small, but combined they bring in more than $100 million a year. That’s according to a new study from the Alaska Miners Association looking at the economic impact of placer mine operations across the state.

In 2013 alone, the report finds placer mining—or the mining of streambeds and other deposits carried by water or erosion for minerals—was active in nearly 300 operations around the state, about 30 percent of which are in Nome. Alicia Amberg, the deputy director of the Alaska Miners Association, said it can be difficult to describe a “typical” placer operation, but many have elements in common.

“Most of our placer mining operations in the state mine for gold,” Amberg said, referring to the new report. She added most are “in remote locations” not accessible by road, with miners relying instead on plane or ATV. “Our average amount of employees on the placer operations in the state are around four,” with many family-run operations, she added.

For years placer mining has been a steady trade for small-scale operations, but exact numbers as to how many people engage in placer mining, and just how much money placer operations generate, has been hard to know. The new study commissioned by the AMA from research firm the McDowell Group combines a statewide survey of miners with data from the Department of Natural Resources to shed light on just how big of an economic engine placer operations truly are.

“The big takeaway from this report is that there is a significant economic impact of placer mining in the state of Alaska,” Amberg said. “That’s jobs, revenue, money that is spent in our state, and that … placer mining truly is the seventh ‘large mine’ in the state of Alaska.”

The report finds placer operations directly employ up to 1,200 workers every year. Most are seasonal jobs, and more than 70 percent of workers are Alaska residents. And the report says the operations pay well, too, with more than $65 million in goods and services spent keeping the operations going, of which nearly 90 percent is spent in-state.

Barb Nichols with the Nome Chamber of Commerce said that is consistent with what they see on the ground in Nome during the busy summer mining season.

“The economic impact of mining to our Nome economy is certainly positive,” Nickels said, reading from a prepared statement. “Jobs have been created for many local residents. Multiple local businesses that provide goods and services have reported increased sales and income during these months. Even the businesses that offer the daily needs such as our grocery stores and restaurants have reported increased sales.”

That’s partially borne out by the City of Nome’s own figures, which shows a peak in collected sales tax during the summer, with the numbers generally peaking higher every summer for the last five years.

Sale tax revenue from the City of Nome. Image: City of Nome.

Deantha Crockett, the Executive Director at AMA, said even as placer mines disappear elsewhere in the country, the report shows they are still a viable mining option in Alaska.

“There are far fewer placer miners today in the United States than there were three or four decades ago, and frankly, 99 percent of them are in Alaska,” she said. “We’ve got this vibrant industry that, there’s a perception out there should be a historic practice … that’s not the case here in Alaska. It’s a healthy industry and it has really important economic impacts.”

The State of Alaska also makes money from active placer mines through royalties, taxes, claim rentals, and other fees, but the AMA cites “confidentiality issues and other data restrictions” as keeping an exact dollar estimate for that state revenue out of the report.

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2015/01/13/placer-mining-big-business-in-alaska-report-finds/feed/0State Land For Sale East of Nomehttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/11/13/state-land-for-sale-east-of-nome/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/11/13/state-land-for-sale-east-of-nome/#commentsFri, 14 Nov 2014 07:54:35 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=12930The Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, is holding a land sale for sites in the East Fork Pass -- about 40 miles east-northeast of Nome.]]>

Parcels of land are now up for grabs on the Seward Peninsula.

The Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, is holding a land sale for sites in the East Fork Pass — about 40 miles east-northeast of Nome along the Council Road, near the Skookum Pass.

The land sale is intended for “remote recreational cabin” parcels, and prohibits commercial use and permanent residences on the land.

Despite these restrictions, the process is still familiar of “wild west” days. To claim a plot (no smaller than 5 acres and no larger than 20 acres), interested parties have to survey the site themselves before literally “staking” down a claim to the land.

Those claims will then be reviewed by DNR — and, if approved, leased to the applicant until final sale.

The East Fork Pass is one of five land sale sites currently up for grabs around the state. Others include Snake Lake outside of Dillingham, Half Cabin Lake and the Dillinger River.

Parties interested in surveying or purchasing a plot of land during the sale can go to landsales.alaska.gov for more information. The deadline to apply is November 25th.

This week’s city election was confirmed by the Nome City Council Thursday, leaving city officials to find other ways to make ends meet after a proposed sales tax increase for alcohol and tobacco was defeated at the polls.

With fewer dollars coming from Juneau, the council had hoped the boosted sales tax on tobacco and alcohol—from 5 to 8 percent—would help pay for some city services like police and ambulance.

“Our whole intent was to try to use the tax for the police for, because 75 percent I believe is the number of our calls are alcohol related,” council member Randy Pomeranz said. But the city could only suggest the tax, and not guarantee how the revenue it generated would be spent. That, Pomeranz said, may be why it failed.

“We were making to create a little revenue for offsetting some of the costs to the police department, but we’ll move forward with what we’ve got.”

Beyond resolving to “move forward,” confirming Tuesday’s election held few surprises for the council; incumbents for the utility board, the city council, and school board ran unopposed and handily won re-election. The only race that held any surprises was for School Board Seat B, which saw newcomer Brandy Arrington winning the seat over write-in candidate Charles Pullock.

Before the council wrapped up its brief work session yesterday, however, they met with a visitor: Joe Balash, commissioner of the state’s Department of Natural Resources.

The council was quick to ask pointed questions of Balash as to DNR’s presence in Nome—or lack thereof—during the city’s increasingly busy summer gold mining season. Council member Tom Sparks invited him to see the impacts for himself.

“We’ve been asking for some help, particularly west beach, I’d encourage you to go there particularly in the summer, in July. We’ve seen a significant uptick in the amount of people over there, some of the trash, some real practical human health and safety issues that are happening on West Beach.”

Many link Nome’s past few “gold rush” summers to DNR’s 2011 lease sale, which brought in $9.3 million for the state. Council member Stan Anderson asked Balash to share the wealth.

“Bottom line, you get over nine million dollars in lease sale money,” Anderson said pointedly. “Couldn’t you at least share some of that? To me it’s an unfunded mandate, we get out of the feds. You sell the land and then we don’t see you again.”

Balash replied that the sales were in fact leases, and added that the department’s toolbox is limited, but a careful look at who leases and uses state land could be a start.

“It’s just a matter of going back through and reviewing our stipulations and seeing what it is we have the ability to control in a reasonable matter,” Balash said.

“What sort of qualifications somebody might have in order to receive a permit. That might go some way to helping address some of the challenges here in terms of housing, and making sure people don’t just show up with nowhere to stay, nowhere to go, and camping out on the beach.”

Balash went on to tour of the city’s port facilities and meeting with city officials and regional landowners like Sitnasuak. No meetings with miners, however, were on his agenda.

The large gold dredge AU Grabberis unlikely to appear in Grantley Harbor this season, says the Department of Natural Resources, but not guaranteed.

A Nome miner, Hank Schimschat, owns the AU Grabber, an 80-foot long barge dredge with an excavator arm, and has submitted a permit to mine in the harbor waters.

Jack Kerin is the Natural Resource Manager with DNR. He said, “Specifically DEC has considered the current application to be of a scale that requires an individual permit and that process can take up to a year.”

That process would involve providing baseline data for the water’s resources and explaining how the dredging won’t impact subsistence. But all that work might not be necessary.

“If the applicant comes in and revises, changes his mining plan, to be something of a scale that these issues can be addressed,” said Kerin, “then it’s possible he could be issued a permit.”

Teller, Brevig Mission, and Mary’s Igloo use Grantley Harbor for subsistence activities and have sent a letter to DNR opposing Schimshat’s operation. Many residents are upset DNR is allowing the permit to undergo further review at all.

One Teller resident stated: “This is very disturbing that DNR [is] giving them a chance to review their application. First of all, you know, the backhoe is going to disturb our land. So what are they going to come up with, you know? Suction dredges next?”

That comment was made at yesterday’s community meeting in Teller where Karin and two other DNR employees addressed community concerns about dredging in Grantley Harbor. Kawerak invited DNR to Teller as part of the corporation’s annual executive session. Many residents from Brevig Mission boated over to attend.

Kerin says since the State owns the subsurface of Grantley Harbor, Schimschat has a legal right to apply for a dredging permit and revise his application.

Kerin explains, “The person has a legal right to the subsurface of the state, the mineral state, and what we have is the right to ensure that how he accesses it is done in a reasonable manner that doesn’t cause undue disruption to the local community. But he has the right to try to change his application to try to address the concerns raised by the community.”

Those concerns surround subsistence. Jolene Okleasik, Teller resident, also attended the meeting and said,“I don’t want it to become like Nome around here. Because if you see lots of dredges, you’ll probably not even see any fish or any wildlife.”

Because the waters of Nome, said Teller resident, Joe Garnie, are very different from the waters of Grantley Harbor. While the shallow waters of the Bering Sea are reestablished every year by winter storms, Grantley Harbor is not, making the harbor unable to withstand dredging’s impacts.

“Even just the minimal equipment of suction dredges would be very destructive here,” said Garnie. “This is not necessarily self-healing waters with wave action like you have right in the Bering Sea. This is old growth bottom.”

Kawerak also invited Graphite One to the meeting to talk about their local mining operations, but no representatives attended.

Amid Nome’s on-going off-shore gold boom, one operation is trying to expand into the waters near Teller and Brevig Mission.

Hank Schimschat owns the Au Grabber–or Gold Grabber– an 80-foot barge dredge with an excavator arm. Schimschat filed for permits to begin work this season.

“My intention is to go up and mine for gold on state-owned DNR land. About 3,600 acres up in Teller, only in Grantley Harbor—not in Tuksuk Channel, and not in Imuruk Basin,” Schimschat said.

Off-shore mining in Grantley Harbor—a closed body of water just east of Teller and Brevig—is a new prospect, and is raising concerns in both communities.

But Schimschat believes environmental and subsistence worries are unwarranted.

“Mining and subsistence can co-exist. It doesn’t hurt the environment,” he explained. “I fully understand the way of subsistence life. And I have compassion for the native people–I have a lot of friends that are native people, and I understand that the subsistence life is a big part of their life, and I have 100% respect for that.”

But not every one agrees the mining impact will be neutral. Delegations from both Teller and Brevig Mission came to Nome to testify against Schimschat’s potential permit at a public meeting earlier this month.

“There’s a deep big concern about the disturbance of our subsistence area, and it’s heavily used by Brevig and Teller,” said Annie Conger, who is from Brevig Mission, and travels back to her family’s fish camp there each summer.

Conger and others are worried what mining will do the sockeye salmon runs in the area, which have declined in recent years, she said. They also fear the dredging may infringe on another subsistence resource, one legislated not by the state but by the Federal Government.

“In the Port Clarence Bay area during the spring and the fall people go out there to hunt for seals—there’s an island–called Seal Island,” Congers chuckled, “where people will go there to hunt for the ringed seal, and also the spotted seals. Fall time we have the juvenile bearded seal that people go out and hunt.”

Grantley Harbor is used by spotted seals and ugruks, both of which are protected under the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act. The listings mean stricter regulations than mining set-ups closer to Nome.

Because operations like the one being proposed by Schimschat are new, regulatory concerns over issuing a permit are being figured out in real time. KNOM contacted multiple state and federal agencies, including the Department of Natural Resources, and no one was certain how the Gold Grabber’s proposal fits into current off-shore mining regulations.

Jack Kerin supervises mining and permitting for DNR, and is familiar with the Gold Grabber application to mine in Grantley Harbor. He explained that under stipulations from the Northwest Area Plan the habitat in the area is considered highly sensitive, adding several layers of complexity in the permitting process. Given the array of agency approval necessary to weight environmental and species impacts from large-scale dredging, and without proven reserves demonstrated in the application submitted, it is unlikely the permit will be approved on the same pace as it might be in the area around Nome.

Schimschat is featured on the Discovery Channel’s Bering Sea Gold franchise. Discovery Channel employees were not allowed to respond to questions, referring KNOM to California-based public relations firm that has yet to respond to questions.

This Wednesday, June 25th, Kawerak and leaders from Teller will be hosting a public forum to address, among other issues, potential mining projects nearby. A representative from DNR will give an update on a permit application for off-shore gold dredging in Grantley Harbor.

The forum is from 5pm – 6pm in the Teller Community Bingo Hall.

This version of the story includes information added after it was first broadcast, including meeting details and comments made by Jack Kerin with DNR.

This Thursday on Sounding Board (December 19th, 2013 at 10am), we’re talking about the Alaska Legislature’s House Bill 77 – a controversial measure that, if passed, would change the permitting process for the use of Alaska’s land and water resources.

More than 30 entities – from tribes to cities to councils – have passed resolutions opposing HB 77. The bill returns to the legislature this January.

What is your opinion on HB 77?

Should only public agencies, which excludes tribes and individuals, be allowed to apply for water reservations?

Should only a person who is “substantially and adversely affected” and not just “aggrieved” be able to oppose a water or land permit?

Is this bill the best way to streamline the Department of Natural Resources’ permitting process?

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